Chassis control technology has achieved noteworthy progress, thanks to advancements in sensing and computing technologies as well as advances in estimation and control theory. This has permitted the design of various control systems using active means to maneuver the vehicle. One such enhancement is the control of individual braking forces at the vehicle wheels for developing a certain yaw response. In general, such controls include a reference model for developing desired state variables such as yaw rate, vehicle side slip angle, and lateral acceleration, and a closed-loop algorithm for developing a yaw moment command based on the detected deviation between the desired values and measured values. The controls are generally designed to force the vehicle to conform to linear-like operation even when the vehicle is in a non-linear mode. Accordingly, the desired vehicle states are typically derived from a linear model of the vehicle.
Most systems of the type described above employ a time-domain vehicle model based on a set of linear differential equations describing the vehicle dynamics in the yaw plane. An advantage of that approach is that the system designer can shape the vehicle response characteristics to particular needs by adjusting model parameters such as cornering stiffness. But some dynamic response parameters, such as the damping ratio and the un-damped natural frequency, can be adjusted only indirectly. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a system that provides more flexibility in directly shaping the dynamic response parameters of the control.